1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing device and an image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Imaging devices such as digital cameras are commonly used nowadays and users can obtain digital image data at ease. Dramatic improvements have been made in the performance of imaging devices. An ordinary user can capture digital image data with a resolution far exceeding 10 million pixels. Imaging devices capable of producing a high-definition (HD) panoramic image by panning a camera and performing image processing to blend a plurality of items of image data obtained by successively imaging an object from different viewpoints.
As the number of pixels in image data is increased, images cannot be viewed in full view on a living room television or on an ordinary personal computer (PC) monitor without reducing image data. Conversely, image data containing a large number of pixels will have to be displayed on a display device in a partial view if it is desired to view the image at a high resolution (e.g., in full size). If the displayed position in an image is changed or the image is enlarged or reduced while the image is being displayed, image processing such as decoding of the image may not be able to catch up with image display.
In one technique proposed to address the failure of image processing to catch up with image display, image data that should be displayed is prefetched for processing in order to smoothly display a list of thumbnails of a plurarity of items of image data.
[patent document No. 1] JP2007-293044
If the decoding of an image cannot catch up with the rendering of an image, the image data may not be viewed properly. For example, a part of the image may not be displayed or images with different resolutions may be displayed at respective areas.